Phillip Earl Niblock (October 2, 1933 – January 8, 2024) was an American composer, filmmaker, and videographer. In 1985, he was appointed director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation for avant-garde music based in New York with a parallel branch in Ghent, Belgium.

thumb|260px|Niblock (center left) at the Random Cube Festival in Oslo, 2006

Early life and education

Niblock was born in Anderson, Indiana on October 2, 1933, to Herbert and Thelma Niblock. He attended Indiana University and graduated with a BA in economics in 1956. He served a brief stint in the U.S. Army after graduating, and in 1958, he moved to New York, where he worked as a photographer and filmmaker.

Career

Niblock's first musical compositions date from 1968. Unusually, even among the avant-garde composers of his generation, he had no formal musical training. He cited the musical activities of New York in the 1960s (and occasional memorable performances, such as the premiere of Morton Feldman's Durations pieces) as a stimulus. All of his compositions were worked out intuitively rather than systematically. His early works were all done with tape, overdubbing unprocessed recordings of precisely tuned long tones played on traditional instruments in four, eight, or sixteen tracks. Since the late 1990s his music has been created with computer technology, notably with Pro Tools on a Macintosh computer. His later works are correspondingly more dense in texture, sometimes involving as many as forty tracks.

Niblock also made a number of films and videos, including several in a series titled The Movement of People Working. The series was filmed primarily in rural environments in many countries and regions of the world (China, Brazil, Portugal, Lesotho, Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, the Arctic, Mexico, Hungary, the Adirondacks, Peru) between 1973 and 1991. Collaborations with such musicians were crucial to his composing life, and the range of musicians with whom he worked include David Gibson, in the cello works of the 1970s; Petr Kotik, Susan Stenger, and Eberhard Blum, on Four Full Flutes; Rafael Toral, David First, Lee Ranaldo, Thurston Moore, Susan Stenger, and Robert Poss on Guitar Too, for Four (G2,44+1x2); Ulrich Krieger, Carol Robinson, Kaspar T. Toeplitz, and Reinhold Friedl, on Touch Food; Dave Soldier and the Soldier String Quartet on Five More String Quartets, Early Winter; and many others. In the last decade of his life he produced several works for orchestra: Disseminate, Three Orchids (for three orchestras), Tow for Tom (for two orchestras), and 4 Chorch + 1, the latter a commission for the Ostrava Music Days 2007 for chorus and orchestra with solo baritone (Thomas Buckner). The premieres of all these works were conducted by Petr Kotik.

In performance, live musicians may play, wandering through the audience changing the sound texture through reinforcement of or interference with the existing tunings. Simultaneously, Niblock generally accompanied performances by presenting his films and videos (often those from The Movement of People Working series, or computer-driven, black-and-white abstract images floating through time). These performances fell into two types: (1) an installation of several hours' duration, with the music pieces played consecutively, with a long loop of several hours of work before repetition, and with multiple images that are shown simultaneously; or (2) a performance, with several simultaneous works of music and film, usually lasting between one and three hours. In these performances Niblock generally projected three (or more) film images simultaneously, on large screens three to four meters wide. The films are 16 mm and color. The music was produced from stereo or quad tapes, with four or more speakers in the corners of the space. His later video pieces were played individually or with several simultaneously, using large video monitors.

Experimental Intermedia Foundation

In 1968, Niblock became an artist-member of Elaine Summers' Experimental Media, frequently hosting live music events for the foundation from his Chinatown loft, which were attended by musicians like Arthur Russell, John Cage, and David Behrman.

Discography

  • Working Touch, 2022.
  • Sound Collages, Koo Editions 2021
  • BAOBAB, The Dorf/Phill Niblock 2019
  • Touch Five, 2013.
  • Touch Strings, 2009.
  • G2 44 +/X 2, 2006.
  • Touch Three, 2006.
  • Disseminate, 2004.
  • The Movement of People Working (DVD), 2003
  • Touch Food, 2003.
  • Touch Works, for Hurdy Gurdy and Voice, 2000.
  • A Young Person’s Guide to Phill Niblock (or short: YPGPN), 1994.
  • Music by Phill Niblock, 1993
  • Four Full Flutes, 1990

Filmography and videography

  • Morning (1966–67, B&W, 16mm, 17 min., sound)
  • The Magic Sun (1966–68, B&W, 16mm, 17 min., sound) with Sun Ra
  • Max (1966–68, B&W, 16mm, 7:30 min., sound) with Max Neuhaus
  • Annie (1968, color, 16mm, 8 min., sound)
  • Dog Track (1969, color, 16mm, 8.5 min., sound)
  • Raoul (1968–69, color, 16mm, 20 min., sound)
  • THIR (aka Ten Hundred Inch Radii and Environments IV) (1970, color, 16mm, 45 min., sound)
  • The Movement of People Working Series (1973–91, color, 16mm unless otherwise indicated, silent):
  • Sur Uno and Dos (Mexico and Peru) (45 min.)
  • Trabajando Uno and Dos (Mexico) (45 min.)
  • Tres Familias: Essex, La Purificacion, and Alpatlahua (90 min.)
  • Four Libros (45 min.)
  • James Bay (45 min.)
  • Arctic (45 min.)
  • Hong Kong (45 min.)
  • South Africa (45 min.)
  • Lesotho (45 min.)
  • Portugal (45 min.)
  • Brasil 83 (Part 1 & 2) (75 min.)
  • Brasil 84 (Part 1 & 2) (90 min.)
  • Hungary (Part 1 & 2) (75 min.)
  • China 86 (120 min.)
  • China 87 (120 min.)
  • China 88 (Part 1, 2, & 3) (120 min.)
  • Japan 89 (Part 1 & 2) (120 min.)
  • Sumatra (video)
  • Romania (Part 1) (video)
  • Poets and Talkers (1975–1988, 16mm & video, 120 min., sound) with Armand Schwerner, Hannah Weiner, Erica Hunt, Dagmar Apel, and Charlie Morrow
  • Anecdotes from Childhood (1986–92, color, video, sound)
  • Terrace of Unintelligibility (1988, color, 3/4-inch U-matic video, 20 min., sound) with Arthur Russell (musician), voice, cello
  • Muna Torso (1992, color, video, 20 min., sound)
  • Topolo 1 (2005, video, 11 min., silent)
  • Topolo 2 (2009, video, 15 min., silent)
  • Remo Osaka 1 (2009, color, SD mini-DV, 75 min., sound)
  • Remo Osaka 2 (2010, color, SD mini-DV, 105 min., sound)
  • Meudrone 1 (2013, color, HD video, 30 min., sound)
  • Meudrone 2 (2014, color, HD video, 30 min., sound)
  • Vain4 BCN (2015, color, HD video, 19 min., sound)
  • Agosto NOSND (2017, color, HD video, 19 min., sound)
  • Pulp Elder A (2018, color, HD video, 5 min., sound)
  • HookerNiblock (2015–19, color, HD video, 18 min., sound) with William Hooker, drums

References